An International Football Match

Before the photograph could catch a match, the engravers did. The illustrated papers of the 1870s sent their draughtsmen to the early internationals and cup ties the way they sent them to coronations and shipwrecks — and the wood engraving that came back is football’s first visual language: the scrimmage rendered stroke by stroke, the crowd in its Sunday best, the fixture an occasion before it was a habit. This is the game as its first spectators actually saw it reported — ink on a weekly page, passed hand to hand. Every institution was once a novelty item; here is the proof, printed the week it was still news.

Maker

the illustrated papers

Date

1870s

Medium of the original

Poster

Original held by

William Ralston / The Graphic, 1872 · Wikimedia Commons

Credit

William Ralston / The Graphic, 1872 · Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-01074